And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.
Ver. 10. And now will I discover her lewdness] Or her filthiness, baseness, foolishness, saplessness; perhaps the same with her nakedness, Hosea 2:9. See Trapp on " Hos 2:9 " How shameless the heathen idolaters were, the worshippers of Priapus especially (which Jerome and Isidore say was the same with Baalpeor, and made Maacha, the mother of Asa, guilty of that villany), with their infamous Nos, pudore pulso, stamus sub Iove coleis apertis, &c., is notoriously known; how they ran about naked in their Lupercalia, Bacchanalia, and other beastly solemnities. God threateneth to make her naked here in another manner, to her utter disgrace and ignominy (Chaldeus reddit ignominiam, ut quam velatam desiderabant, apertam contemnant. Jerome). He had threatened her before with poverty, now with scorn and contempt: these go seldom asunder; but when self-procured they are very grievous. See Deuteronomy 28:15,68. Fornicators are fools, Jer 29:23 Genesis 34:7, Shechem committed folly in Israel, and is therefore called a lad or a child Genesis 34:19 , Neque distulit puer for his witlessness, as being carried not by right reason, but blind affection. So Amnon was for this as one of the fools in Israel, 2 Samuel 13:12, a Nabal, a Nebulo, one that falls below the dignity of a man, below the stirrup of reason, flagitious and profligate.
Spiritual fornicators are all this and more. They hunt after lying vanities, and so forsake their own mercies, John 2:8, being singularly foolish (as the word here used importeth) and miserable by their own election. The indignity and iniquity of their practice, see Jeremiah 2:9,13. Satan deals by them as he did by Adam when he gave him an apple for Paradise; and set him to the tree of knowledge that he might not taste the tree of life. And like unto them (saith a Lapide here) is every wicked person who by Satan's persuasion preferreth the creature before the Creator, earth before heaven, the devil before God, hell before heaven, sin before sanctity, evil before good. These are lewd persons of sordid and servile dispositions, homines ad servitutem parati (as Tiberius said of the Romans), men of an under-spirit, as those, 1 Chronicles 4:23. Hedge rogues Mr Dyke calleth them.
In the sight of her lovers] That her whom they have so desired while she was veiled they may deride when laid open. There can nothing befall a woman more grievous than to be stripped naked, but especially before her sweethearts: Lamentations 1:8, "All that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth and turneth backward." It is the paint or the dress many times that makes the lewd woman lovely. Think the same of idolatry: how pompous is it, and theatrical! but God will detect it, and make it ridiculous every day more and more. Erasmus was very instrumental this way, and did prejudice Popery by his witty jeering as much as Luther did by his stomaching and inveighing, saith Capito. Though it cannot be denied but that pruriginosa istorum hominum scabies asperiori strigili fricanda fuerat, the scabby hides of those popelings called for a sharper currycomb, as another learned man phraseth it (Amama. Anibarb. Praefat.).
And none shall deliver her out of my hand] Not her idols, not her confederates. "An idol is nothing in the world," 1 Corinthians 8:4, and all nations set by God are as a drop of a bucket, or dust of a balance: they can no more stand before him than a glass bottle can before a cannon shot. It was bootless, therefore, for this adulteress to hope for help from her lovers when God once took her in hand. He would give her her due, ipsis spectantibus et stantibus instar stipitum, while they looked on and stood like so many stocks, not daring to stir for her rescue and relief. See for this, Revelation 18:10. See Trapp on " Rev 18:10 "